ANTHROPOLOGY 2AC (Vocab 2)

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Absolute
chronology

Allows archaeologists to assign

calendar dates to archaeological
deposits. Examples include
dendrochronology, radiocarbon dating,
thermoluminescence, and potassium
argon dating.

Actor-network
theory

An archaeological school of thought

that argues objects, just as people, have
the ability to act (agency), in a way that
makes them even (symmetrical) within a
network.

3.

Bartering

A form of exchange in which goods or

labor perceived to be of similar value
are traded at the same time.

4.

Bioarchaeology

same as zooarchaeology.

Central Place
Theory (CPT)

Developed by Christoph Waller, it

examines the economic relationships
between cities and surrounding rural
areas. It asserts that larger cities
develop as distribution centers to the
smaller, rural towns surrounding them
and that the widest array of goods are
available nearest the center of the
distribution.

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Chaines-opertoire

"Operational chain" is an approach

developed by Leroi-Gourhan that
examines the physical and cognitive
series of actions that go into material
production, from start (gathering
materials) through labor of production
(and by-products associated with this)
to the finished object.

Cognitive
archaeology

Archaeological school of thought that

specializes in the study of the cognitive
steps of production.

8.

Creolization

A native language of a group of

speakers with constant enrichment of
vocabulary by borrowing. (mixing of
culture).

9.

Dating techniques

two types: relative and absolute. Helps

pin the approximate date of the artifact.

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Dendrochronology An absolute dating technique that

calibrates a tree's growth rings from
wood fragments to create a
chronological sequence that other
wood samples can be compared to. It is
also often called tree-ring dating
Distance decay
model

see down the line trade model above.

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Down-the-line
trade models

Trade models that demonstrate that in

ancient societies, the further away
something gets from its place of
manufacture, the more rare it becomes
(also known as the distance decay
model).

Embodied
experience

A person's daily, lived experience

moving through the world.

Ethnoarchaeology Branch of archaeological research that

involves archaeologists doing particular
kinds of ethnographic research with the
explicit goal of understanding the
archaeological record.
Ethnographic
analogy

Archaeological methodology that

consists of using ethnographic
information to interpret archaeological
patterns.

Ethnography

The research tool of anthropologists

who learn about other societies through
participant observationor living within
a groupand interviewing informants.

evolutionary
archaeology

Views society as an organism with a

genotype and phenotype. In this case,
material culture serves as the
phenotypic expression of human
populations. It is also known as
selectionist archaeology.

Exchange
relationships

Bartering

Experimental
archaeology

Archaeological methodology that

attempts to understand some past
cultural or taphonomic processes
through replicative experiments in the
present.

Geographic
Information
Systems
(GIS)

Database programs that allow the user

to understand evidence spatially. Very
important tool used in site recording
and archaeological analysis.

human behavioral
ecology (HBE)

Archaeological school of thought that

developed out of processualism and
was influenced by evolutionary
processes. It typically focuses on
understanding strategies of resource
acquisition and the social impacts that
arise from those strategies.

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microscalar/macroscalar Considers small groups of

people over short periods of
time./ Considers large
populations over large periods of
time.
Native American Graves
Protection and
Repatriation Act
(NAGPRA)

Native Americans trying to

prevent scientific analysis of their
ancestors' remains. Act passed by
federal law in 1990.

Object agency

who/ how/what of object. e.g.

who created it, who used it, what
it was used for.

Obsidian hydration
dating

A relative or absolute dating

technique (depending on
whether the obsidian has been
sourced or not) developed within
processual archaeology whereby
the thickness of the hydration
layer that forms on the outside of
the obsidian artifact is measured
and used to calculate a date.

Oral history

palimpsest

The process of interviewing

people about their memories of
the past.
An assemblage where
chronological relationships are
collapsed upon one another with
no matrix between to keep
materials from different periods
of time separate.

Post-processual
archaeology

An umbrella term used to

describe the theoretically and
topically diverse range of
archaeological studies that arose
following Ian Hodder's critique of
processual archaeology. These
studies share an attention to the
role of human agency and
symbolic life.

29.

Potassium-argon dating

Radiometric dating technique that

measures decay of radioactive
potassium into argon gas. It is
used mainly in archaeological
settings to date hominid remains.

30.

Primary source

document/ physical object which

was written or created in a time
under study

31.

Radiocarbon Dating

Uses radioactive element C14 to

pinpoint an exact date on the
artifact. How much C14 it has
absorbed determines how long it
has decayed and how long it
lived.

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Reciprocity

A form of exchange wherein a gift is

expected to be returned in some
way.

33.

Relative chronology

Allows archaeologists to assign dates

to deposits relative to one another
older or younger.

34.

secondary source

interprets and analyses primary

sources.

site catchment
analysis

An archaeological technique that

examines the abundance of particular
resources within a defined area
around a site.

36.

Task differentiation

Different specialized craftsman

working together to create one final
product.

37.

Technology

The sum of a society's shared

knowledge regarding how to make
things and extract resources.

38.

Terminus Post Quem

"Date after which"meaning that this

date indicates the earliest possible
start date for an archaeological
deposit.

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Thermoluminescence kind of absolute dating technique by

(TL) dating
measuring accumulative radiation
dose of crystalline materials.
X-ray fluorescence
(XRF)

A machine that uses x-rays to excite

a material so it releases photons
(fluorescing). Each element within the
material responds in a way consistent
with its atomic structure, which allows
archaeologists to see the relative
abundance of different elements
within the material.